Leave Me Alone!

There is a rat inside this nest:

Usually the girls sleep on their bedding but in this case I think Sushi shoved all the bedding in the front to hide from us. Saké was downstairs renovating when I noticed the nest. Sushi must be a bit tired of all the attention, plus she's still swollen and probably sore from Tuesday's surgery.

In terms of recovery, I think she is doing pretty well. She has another day of pain meds and I will be glad to be done with those (she isn't a fan of them). Her antibiotics do not seem to bother her as much. It is remarkably hard to get the syringe into her mouth when she doesn't want it there - it is amazing how dexterous and strong her tiny paws are.

She is still eating the mixture of crushed lab blocks and baby cereal, as well as soaked monkey chow. I did notice her poking around the water bottle yesterday, which I think means her mouth must be feeling a bit better. Until she's able to drink comfortably, the baby cereal mixture should give her enough water. 

Lonely Saké

It's tough when your sister disappears for an entire day and then returns home swollen and sleepy. What's a rat to do, except curl up in her nest and hide?

I had a hard time finding Saké initially:


First I noticed the ear. Then a nose appeared:


And finally, one very uninterested eye:


As for Sushi today, she's okay. Still swollen, but her color is better and she is back to grooming herself. She's also eating pretty well. We are giving her a mixture of baby cereal and crushed lab blocks, which she seems to like. She doesn't seem to mind her antibiotics, but she is less than excited about taking her pain meds. Fortunately we only have to give those for a couple of more days.

Malocclusion: the Gift that Keeps on Growing

Sushi's vet appointment yesterday was both good and bad. The good news is that she's gained 21 more grams, for a total of 181. The average weight for an adult female is 350-450 grams, so even though Sushi is only 4.5 months old, she's still pretty tiny. Saké is probably 30% bigger than Sushi at this point.

The bad news is that, however things have shifted in her skull, her bottom incisors are now pretty loose. So not only do they turn drastically and aim into her right cheek, they wiggle freely. This is likely to make eating pretty uncomfortable and difficult for her.

As a result, the vet mentioned doing surgery to pull the top and bottom incisors at six months, and this is something we are seriously considering. Sushi would be able to come home the same day she has surgery and would be on antibiotics and pain medicine for a bit afterward. Evidently rats do pretty well with this and usually are back to eating the night of the surgery.

We have some research to do and more questions to ask of the vet, but I think with both her teeth requiring such frequent trimming plus the looseness of her bottom teeth, surgery is the way we're headed.

In terms of getting her teeth trimmed this time, Sushi was a champ. I think the entire vet visit, from walking in the door to Sushi waking up enough to leave, took about fifteen minutes.

I didn't take the camera to the vet, so instead I'll end with this picture of Dave looking disapproving about the whole teeth situation.

Dave: the ultimate rat perch.